Guns, brilliance, sabotage, and zombies

3 years ago

Talking gun control during memorial

During a memorial service yesterday for the 12 victims of the Navy Yard shooting, President Obama called for America to undergo a "transformation" on gun rights.

I'm not really clear on what that means, actually.

I assume somebody is not letting the President be clear.

Again.

“I do not accept that we cannot find a common-sense way to preserve our traditions, including our basic Second Amendment freedoms and the rights of law-abiding gun owners while at the same time reducing the gun violence that unleashes so much mayhem on a regular basis,” Obama said. “It may not happen tomorrow and it may not happen this week, it may not happen next month. But it will happen because it is the change that we need. And it’s a change overwhelmingly supported by the majority of Americans.”

The Navy Yard shooter was mentally disturbed and his co-workers, friends, and family knew it. Heck, the shooter knew it and tried to get help. Mental derangement is actually the common factor is all mass shootings.

As much as it might pain some folks to admit it, Ann Coulter has it right:

Tellingly, throughout the last three decades, the overall homicide rate has been in free fall, thanks to Republican crime policies, from 10 per 100,000 in 1980 to 4 per 100,00 today. (You might even call them "common sense" crime policies.) But the number of mass shootings has skyrocketed from 4 per year, between 1900 and 1970, to 29 per year since then.

Something seems to have gone horribly wrong right around 1970. What could it be? Was it the introduction of bell-bottoms?

That date happens to correlate precisely with when the country began throwing the mentally ill out of institutions in 1969. Your memory of there not being as many mass murders a few decades ago is correct. Your memory of there not being as many homeless people a few decades ago is also correct.

For some reason, institutionalization is never mentioned as part of a needed "transformation" in the wake of these mass shootings.

What do you think? Did the President needlessly politicize this memorial service by talking about gun control? Or was this the exact place he should be talking gun control?

Before you answer that...

Consider this: You disagree with the President because he's too brilliant.

According to House Minority Leader Nancy "Pass It To Know What's In It" Pelosi, Republicans don't like Obama because he's eloquent and nonpartisan.

“You know why it is,” she said. “You know why it is. He’s brilliant, … he thinks in a strategic way in how to get something done … and he’s completely eloquent. That’s a package that they don’t like.”…

Then she added a line that she has used before, that drives Republicans batty: “He has been … open, practically apolitical, certainly nonpartisan, in terms of welcoming every idea and solution. I think that’s one of the reasons the Republicans want to take him down politically, because they know he is a nonpartisan president, and that’s something very hard for them to cope with.”

Speaking of involunary institutionalization, I think we've got a candidate.

Targeting Cruz

And maybe you missed this bombshell yesterday, in your Panthers-induced celebratory stupor, but FOX News' Chris Wallace made a startling revelation:

So, "top Republicans" provided Wallace with opposition research so he could hammer Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) during the Sunday televised interview?

Nice party unity, you got there.

Another great example of how GOP "establishment" tell grassroots activists and Tea Partiers to support whatever republican candidate wins in the primaries, while undercutting those very people and their candidates.

On the other hand, Karl Rove's explanation is that Cruz made his own bed, by not seeking help from his GOP colleagues on the "Defund Obamacare" strategy.

But would that have done any good? And even if Republicans are mad that Cruz didn't consult them, does that justify efforts to sabotage Cruz on national TV?

And for fun...

Here's the "Honest Trailer" for the movie World War Z.

Pete is a limited government "lower-case L" libertarian. His default position is freedom. Pete recognizes that this is scary to a lot of people.Pete takes phone calls and talks about the news of the day. He believes that these discussions with the audience is helping solve the world's problems. Pete's a giver.He has been in North Carolina media for nearly twenty years, as an award-winning radio journalist, a TV reporter, and a talk show host.For archives of The Pete Kaliner Show podcasts, click here.